Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* In Pennsylvania, publicity surrounding Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum’s new book<\/a> apparently hasn’t boosted his re-election prospects. A new Rasmussen poll shows Santorum trailing Pennsylvania Treasurer Robert Casey (D) 52% to 41%<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Dems in the lead, a new Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind poll found Sen. Jon Corzine (D) leading Douglas Forrester (R) in New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, 47% to 34%<\/a>. Forrester saw a boost in his name-recognition numbers, but it didn’t help narrow the overall gap between him and Corzine.<\/p>\n * Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa) got an earful<\/a> yesterday at a fundraiser in his honor hosted by Karl Rove. Dozens of protestors carried American flags and toilet plungers yelling “Fire Karl Rove” and “Stop the leaks” outside the event. Many observers noted that Gerlach is playing with fire — he barely held off Democratic attorney Lois Murphy in 2004 in a district in which Kerry beat Bush. Murphy, who’s planning a rematch next year, said, “Until Rove’s role in the controversy is explained to the satisfaction of the American people, Jim Gerlach should not seek to benefit from Rove’s support for his political campaign.”<\/p>\n * Utah state representative Steve Urquhart (R), ignoring the insurmountable odds, has announced that he will challenge<\/a> Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) next year. Under the state’s system, however, a GOP primary contest between Hatch and Urquhart would be held only if neither gets 60% of the delegate vote at the state Republican convention in May. Assuming Hatch holds on, which seems likely, he’ll probably face Pete Ashdown (D), founder and CEO of Internet service provider XMission, on Election Day.<\/p>\n * In Virginia, Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine (D) is relying on support from leading national Dems to help narrow the gap with former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore. This week, John Kerry sent<\/a> his Virginia supporters an e-mail on Kaine’s behalf. On Wednesday, Kaine was joined by Barack Obama<\/a> for a packed fundraiser in Northern Virginia.<\/p>\n * And Wesley Clark fans will be pleased to hear that the retired general is still very much interested in the 2008 presidential race. Asked by the Indianapolis Star if he’s planning to run, Clark said<\/a>, “I am very interested in service to the country and want to help in any way I can. I haven’t ruled anything out.” (via Taegan Goddard<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers: * In Pennsylvania, publicity surrounding Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum’s new book apparently hasn’t boosted his re-election prospects. A new Rasmussen poll shows Santorum trailing Pennsylvania Treasurer Robert Casey (D) 52% to 41%. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}